Falling Light Effect:

Act one ends with a light falling from the 1st electric and “narrowly missing” a character on stage.

I designed this effect in three parts:

2. The Action was controlled by two people; the Stage Manager (via the light board op) whose booth sits Center, and the Master Carpenter with a “dead man’s switch” who was stationed just off stage left in line with the light on the 1st electric.

   The effect would only be allowed to trigger if no performer was directly in line-of-sight of either the Stage Manager (upstage-downstage) or the Master Carpenter (stage left-stage right). We successfully triggered this effect safely for the entire run of the show.

3. The light was made of cardboard and vaccuform plastic with a foam cushion on the bottom. The test shown in the video (left) is an early iteration - we solved the damage to the light by adding more foam. Although, we did replace the light part way through the run.

4. The dropping mechanism was a solenoid attached to a pin that held the light in place until it received power from a cue in the light board, via the dead man’s switch at stage level.